


Trust

by i_am_a_mole_and_i_live_in_a_hole



Series: 30 Day OTP Porn Challenge [3]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Aftercare, Aftermath of Torture, BDSM, Cuddling & Snuggling, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Loki, Scene Gone Wrong, Schmoop, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-29
Updated: 2014-04-29
Packaged: 2018-01-21 05:32:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1539479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_am_a_mole_and_i_live_in_a_hole/pseuds/i_am_a_mole_and_i_live_in_a_hole
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-traumatic stress has a way of making kink scenes go wrong. Written for Prompt #2 of the 30 Day OTP Porn Challenge: Awkward sex/Things don't go as planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trust

          Iron Man, the Avenger, did not have nightmares in which someone grabbed the back of his head and forced his face down into a waiting tub of water. He definitely had never felt a stab of fear mixed with self-directed contempt at being laid bare, having his shirt unbuttoned to reveal the arc reactor which could be so easily (with only the slightest of metallic _clicks_ ) pulled straight out of his chest. There was _no fucking way_ he had dreams in which this precise thing happened, Obadiah’s face replaced with that of Fury, or sometimes Steve, or most often, and most horrifyingly, the face of the god with whom he’d left the rest of his vulnerable, damaged heart.

         …Yeah, no fucking way that happened. Anyway, it didn’t matter. That was what he told himself, anyway.

          And when Fury pulled him aside to warn him in hushed tones that it looked like the Ten Rings were back, he told the one-eyed man the same thing: _Well, that’s just wonderful. But it’s fine, we’ll deal with it. It’s not a problem. I—dude, are you serious? I do not need a security detail. I’m Tony fucking Stark. I literally am the security detail._

          Honestly. The very idea.

          But not long after, something… happened.

*

          Tony was naked and on his knees, one end of a coarse hempen rope tied around his neck, the other held loosely in the left hand of the god standing in front of him. His head was tipped forward, cheek resting against the inside of Loki’s hip, and Loki’s other hand was loosely tangled in his hair, affectionately stroking. There was _nothing_ whatsoever that was wrong about the scene—hell, it was one of the least intense they’d ever _done_ —but Tony had felt a bit _off_ from the moment it had started, and when Loki’s hand moved to the back of Tony’s head, nudging Tony’s face towards Loki’s cock, he—

          Something was wrong.

          He couldn’t do this.

          “Defiance, pet?” Loki’s voice had taken on a hard, lazily menacing quality—one he’d used _many_ times to great effect before, but Tony was too out of it to remind himself of that. “Do you think you have a choice but to provide service to your god?”

          _Yes,_ something in the back of his mind gasped, _I do, I know I do, I know you wouldn’t do that—_

          But the words wouldn’t come out of his mouth, and the hand on the back of his skull tightened, pushing his head down on Loki’s cock with undeniable force.  Then he was choking, throat spasming around an intrusion that it wasn’t ready for, clutching at Loki’s hips in a panic. He couldn’t breathe. _He couldn’t breathe—_

          Then, suddenly, he could.

          “Tony? What’s wrong?”

          The gentle voice was back, soft and concerned. Tony could have cried in relief. In fact, he was pretty sure he was already crying. There was moisture on his cheeks. He had spent a great deal of time naked around Loki, but he was terribly conscious of being naked then, and he hunkered in on himself, ducking his head, wrapping his arms around his stomach. He felt raw, vulnerable, off-balance, as if he was leaning out over the edge of a precipice about to fall onto the shattering rocks below.

          A soft, heavy weight settled over his shoulders—a blanket. He snatched at the edges and pulled them close, leaning into the touch when a hand cautiously came to stroke his shoulder.

          Loki continued rubbing his back, waiting until the uncontrollable shivering stopped and the tears slowed to try and talk to him again. When he did, his voice was quieter than before. Kind. Worried.

          “What happened?”

          “Nothing. I’m fine.” He dried his face off on the edge of the blanket. “I just… nothing. Ugh. Sorry. I’m sorry about that. Don’t know what that was.”

          “Do you need me to g—”

          _“No.”_ His voice was emphatic. “It’s fine. You’re fine. I don’t—it wasn’t anything you did.”

          “But—what was it? Or,” and he saw Loki swipe a thumb across his own lower lip and turn his gaze politely ahead, “Would you rather I not ask?”

          “Yes. No. I don’t know. Ugh.” Tony groaned and buried his face in his knees. He felt rather pathetic, and quite wretched. “I’m sorry. Can we just—go and do something else for a while? Eat something. Watch the stupidest reality show available on television for a bit. Steal the Statue of Liberty. Actually, not that last one, I wouldn’t have anywhere to put it.” He was definitely babbling.

          “Of course.”

          Loki dressed them both again with a wave of his hand, in sweatpants and t-shirts that Tony recognized from his own wardrobe. Tony wasn’t sure how he felt about Loki extending him a hand to help him up from the floor, or how he felt about being practically _shepherded_ over to the couch with a protective hand on his elbow _._ He had the feeling that he _definitely_ should not approve of how Loki flipped straight to _Law and Order: SVU_ without needing to so much as glance at him to make sure he’d guessed correctly. (Tony was going to have to keep an eye on his own trashy television habits from now on.) But he felt a definite curl of warmth (tinged with a pang of guilt) in his stomach when Loki proceeded to give JARVIS an order for Indian food from that place down the block, remembering both its name and every detail of Tony’s order down to the phrase “Make sure it’s extra spicy, and I mean _Indian_ spicy, not _pussified American palate_ spicy”.

          He beckoned the god over with a curl of his fingers and leaned against him heavily, eyes squeezing shut. He felt Loki’s arms wrap hesitantly around him once more.

          “I’m sorry.”

          “Don’t be.” Loki’s arms tightened around him fractionally, long fingers stroking his shoulders—staying well clear of his hair. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

          “Neither did you. I’m sorry it ended like that.”

          Loki just hugged him. “It’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”

*

          They started drinking when the food arrived, and later wound up lying tangled together on the couch, an entire liter of whiskey down to the last few droplets on the coffee table (Asgardians had _frighteningly_ good tolerance), the remains of Indian delivery strewn around it. Tony had gotten himself snuggled firmly against Loki’s chest, the right side of his face smushed against Loki’s shoulder. Loki’s lower arm was pillowed under Tony’s head, his hand coming around to rest against Tony’s back, the other hand resting courteously high on Tony’s waist. Loki’s face was flushed and his eyes were half-lidded when Tony started talking, his voice unnaturally loud and beginning to slur as he spoke.

          “Ten Rings’re back. Fury told me. Ten _Rings,_ hah, more like Ten _Assholes._ Think it’s fun to shove your head in a tank of water. Drowning’s like the most popular way of torturing people these days. Drowning and killing people who don’t deserve it. It sucked. I don’t like them. They’re not invited to my dinner parties. Ever. Not that I have dinner parties, but if I did, I would definitely poison them.”

          Loki’s eyes were open again, and his thumb stroked circles against Tony’s side where his hand lay. “They hurt you.”

          “Poison. Definitely poison. Maybe smallpox. Or, oooh, dimethylmercury, that one’s _fun._ You know what happens with dimethylmercury? It takes kind of a long time but then they go into all these _convulsions._ Or brodifacoum. That one’s good too. Lots of fun. It’s an anticoagulant, so their blood stops clotting and eventually they start bleeding from every orifice and the teeeeeeeniest tiniest blood vessel.”

          For a moment, the look on Loki’s face was impossible to interpret. Then, “That sounds wholly appropriate, Tony, to _me_ at least, but _you_ —you must be really… fucking… _drunk._ We should put you to bed.”

          “Nah. Don’t go.” Tony emphasized his point by tossing a leg over Loki’s hip. “Promise I don’t _really_ think you’re an asshole. Even if you have done some pretty asshole things. You didn’t hurt me. Haven’t hurt me. Even that one time, I was fine.” He giggled. “ _Performance issues._ ”

          Loki had gone silent.

          “Anyway, you’re good. _Really_ good. I think I love you. I know you’d stop if it really hurt.  You _did_ stop. ‘s good to know.” Another giggle. “You’re definitely the best reindeer.”

          The hitch in Loki’s breathing was hardly noticeable, and indeed Tony almost did fail to notice it. Then Loki suddenly wrapped both arms around Tony and hugged him fiercely.

          “Mmmph.”

          The hold loosened. “Oh, Tony, good grief. Are you going to remember any of this at all in the morning?”

          “Probably, yeah, I don’t really black out much. It’s kinda nice, I’m always the one who remembers how we got there when we wake up and stuff.”

          “Aha.”

          “’m tired though. We should sleep now. Don’t go anywhere.” And he fisted a hand in Loki’s shirt to emphasize his point.

          “No, Tony, I’m not going anywhere.” Loki patted his arm with a sigh. “Though we’re not doing this again anytime soon if I want to maintain the integrity of my ribcage.”

          “Tha’s fine.” Tony’s eyes were already drifting shut. Loki just kissed his forehead.

          Then, they slept.

*

           _After_

          “You know… I’m kinda surprised,” Tony said much later, on the day he and his Avenger teammates brought the members of the last remaining Ten Rings cell into custody, “That you didn’t go out and just slaughter them all. I kept sorta expecting to wake up one morning and find their remains spat up on my doormat, like the cat used to do.”

          “Are you saying that I’d make you clean up my _hairballs,_ Stark?” Loki looked so affronted that Tony had to burst out laughing.

          “Only a little bit! I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m honestly glad you didn’t. But it just seems like a Norse deity sort of thing to do, you know?”

          “Mm, I see what you mean. _Thor_ would definitely do something like that.” The god stuck his nose in the air briefly before propping his chin up on his fist where he sat spinning an avocado on the kitchen counter, an untouched knife sitting nearby. “But for _you,_ Stark—doing something like that, without asking? I think it would patronize you. You are not some innocent child in need of protection. Not that I didn’t keep an eye on you— _do_ continue your habit of always wearing the same belt and sunglasses, by the way, the ones with the locator spells, and don't you roll your eyes at me, you hypocrite! your teammates are worse, your one-eyed man is downright dreadful, and you're just as bad about them—but I didn’t think it my place to go so far as to interfere in an affair that was ultimately yours to handle. Not without your explicit request.”

          “Ah—yeah. You’re right.” Tony walked over, draped his arms around Loki’s shoulders from behind as the god affected a dramatic eye-roll. “You used to do that kind of thing before, though. Back when I wasn’t going to get away with saying the L-word without having you go bolting away like a hissing cat. Don’t think I didn’t notice just because you didn’t barf the corpses all over my carpet.”

          “…Oh.” Loki sounded sheepish, but seemed to take the revelation in stride. “Ah, well. True enough, I suppose. In my defense, I was a great deal less impressed with the abilities of mortals to take care of themselves.”

          “Wait, have you decided you think mortals _aren’t_ all pathetic weaklings anymore?! I should call Steve and tell him you’ll probably be building animal shelters within the month.”

          “Oh, for the—shut up, you idiot. I will be doing no such thing.” Loki elbowed him in the side. “Mortals _are_ pathetic weaklings. Most of them, anyway. But—frankly, Stark?”

          This sounded important. Tony stopped trying to drop the ice cubes from his drink down Loki’s shirt.

          “Yeah?”

          “You _trusted_ me. That’s not something I get a lot of. And I figured that…”

          Loki did his best to affect a disinterested shrug. Tony pretended not to snicker at its transparency.

          “I just figured that... well. I knew you might not say anything, but I know you now better than I once did. Don't get me wrong—the way you do things sometimes truly frightens me. I don't think you have enough regard for your safety at _all."_  Tony could just tell from that tone of voice that Loki's dark brows were knitted together in a deep frown. "And there are decisions you make about your own safety and healing that I think could be... wiser. But... I _knew_  that you wouldn't like it if I took the choice of what to do away from you like that. And I figured..." Loki hedged, seeming to lose some of his words, "Well, I figured that this point, even with all of my troubles and peculiarities, you trust _me._ So... I thought that I should probably trust  _you."_

**Author's Note:**

> Visit me on tumblr as mari-the-mole or happygutters (porn and other nsfw).
> 
> Dimethylmercury is one of the strongest known neurotoxins in the world, and has claimed the lives of multiple chemists who have tried to use it. Most famously, Karen Wetterhahn, an inorganic chemist at Dartmouth College, was killed by dimethylmercury poisoning after months after spilling a few drops on her gloved hand; tests showed that the substance can diffuse through gloves and skin within about 15 seconds. As a result of her death, which occurred despite her having taken all precautions recommended at the time, safety recommendations for its handling were revised. Chemists now are advised not to use dimethylmercury if at all possible, and if doing so anyway, to handle this and other similarly dangerous substances using gloves which are significantly more resistant, such as highly resistant plastic laminate under long-cuffed neoprene.
> 
> Brodifacoum is, as previously stated, an anticoagulant. It has a very high potency and a long duration of action, but it can be rather simply treated by administering Vitamin K. (Brodifacoum's mechanism of action involves disrupting the catalytic activity of an enzyme, Vitamin K epoxide reductase, required for the production of blood coagulants.) It's not even remotely similar to dimethylmercury in terms of action or risk to life--and is not, to my knowledge, known for killing the people who work with it--but... well, my excuse is that Tony's drunk and not actually a chemist, just throwing out names of dangerous substances he's heard of.


End file.
